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Che Cownsend Library 

of 

f^ational^ State, 
and Individual Civil Star Records 

at 

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New Xork City 




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THE 



TOWNSEND LIBRARY 



OF 



NATIONAL, STATE, 

AND INDIVIDUAL CIVIL WAR 

RECORDS 



AT 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK CITY 



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32322 



f RESS OF STYLES 1 CASH, N. Y. 




THE TOWNSEND LIBRARY 

( The property of Columbia University) 

JUDGED 
3Y ITS CONTEMPORARIES. 

{For description of the work see page 12.) 



The Journal of Commerce. — " It is a work without parallel in the 
history of books, or in books of history." 



Hon. Benjamin D. Silliman. — "Your genius in recording the 
rebellion is equal to that of Grant in suppressing it." 



New York Daily Tribune, October 10, 1897. -" The completion 
of the ' Townsend Library,' as the great work known as ' National, 
State and Individual Records' is popularly called, is an incident of 
more than passing interest. It marks the culmination of nearly forty 
years of labor, and of the compiling, digesting and indexing of the 
greatest mass of historical narratives in existence pertaining to the 
National life of America from the outbreak of the Rebellion to the 
present day. That this monumental work has been secured for ever to 
New York, in the library of one of its great universities, through the 
munificence of one of its citizens, is cause for hearty public congrat- 
ulation, while to the creator of the ' Library,' not only the city but the 
whole Nation owes a debt of gratitude that can never be discharged nor 
even adequately expressed." 



New York Herald. — " When these memorable words were uttered 
by Winthrop, ' Would that some competent person would keep a careful 
record of events, for we are making history hand over hand'; he little 
imagined how stupendous was to be the amount of labor involved in 
keeping such a record. This has been so well done by Mr. Townsend 
that all who in future years desire information concerning an individual 
or an event in any way connected with or incidental to the Rebellion 
will be enabled to find it as easily as a merchant can find an entry in his 
accounts." 



6 The Townsend Library. 

The Evening Post. — " Here are materials for writing a history of 
the civil war more accurate and circumstantial than was ever written of 
any war that was ever waged." 



The Comte de Paris. — " It is a work of the greatest value, which 
seems to be above the strength of a single man and the limits of a 
single life." 



General Grant. — " I heartily indorse the sentiments of the Comte 
de Paris." 



S. Irenaeus Prime, editor of the New York Observer.— " It is a 
compilation that has no equal before or since the invention of the art 
of printing, and future ages will prize it as one of the chief memorials 
of the first century of American independence." 



The New York World.—" It is a subject in which posterity as 
well as the public of to-day is vitally interested." 



William Cullen Bryant. — "The compiling of a lexicon in any 
language is nothing to it. The forty academicians who compiled the 
Dictionary of the French Language had a far less laborious task." 



The New York Mail and Express. — " It is difficult to conceive 
that any private citizen could be found bold enough to undertake the 
task, and enthusiastic and brave enough to persevere amid extraordinary 
difficulties in forming such a Record, far surpassing anything of the 
kind that the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Imperial of Paris, or 
any other library in the world can ever possess." 

Governor Seymour of New York. — " It is a miracle of labor, 
arrangement and execution. It is not only necessary to the historian, 
but will be of great value in the event of war with other nations." 

The New York Times. — " It was long since recognized that a collec- 
tion so exhaustive in scope and so valuable to history should have a 
permanent and public home, where students of history and writers of 
books might freely consult it." 



Dr. John Q. Cogswell, The first Superintendant of the Astor 
Library. — " As a chronological and synchronous record of events, it is 
more minute and more authentic than could be formed in any other 
way." 

Mr. Schroeder, Superintendent of the Astor Library. — "As an evi- 
dence of ingenious conception and most laborious and praisworthy de- 



The Townsend Library. 7 

votion to a great undertaking, it commanded the loudest and most cor- 
dial approbation of all present." 



The New York Tribune. — "It would be exceedingly unfortunate 
and discreditable if Mr. Townsend's infinite labor should fail to be pre- 
served where it would be permanently accessible to scholars and writers." 



Horace Greeley. — "Had I been acquainted with the nature and 
scope of the work before preparing my ' History of the Rebellion,' it 
m.ight have saved me much time, labor and research." 



Hon. John A. Dix. — "Its value cannot be estimated in money. 



Rev. Henry W. Bellows, President of the U. S. Sanitary Com- 
mission. — "I do not believe that another man competent to this task 
could have been found in the country who would have given so many 
years of his life to this undertaking. It seems to be almost a providen- 
tial felicity that such a curious and unique record exists." 



Hon. John Sherman. (On receipt from the author of a transcript 
of Gen. Sherman's record). — "It is in itself a compendium of his military 
career. I feel that you will merit the grateful thanks of the family and 
kindred of General Sherman, which I sincerely tender you." 



The Press. — "Its immense value and importance have been tes- 
tified to by every prominent citizen to whose attention it has been 
brought. The press of the city and country have universally commended 
it as a work of national importance." 



The Commercial Advertiser. — "It is a monument of perserving 
industry and of literary labor." 



The Christian at Work.— "Mr. Townsend certainly deserves well 
at the hands of the Republic for having prepared at his own cost a his- 
tory of the war." 



Chief Justice Chase. — "I can add nothing in commendation of 
your work to what has been already said by others. It will be of the 
greatest value to the future historian." 



The Examiner. — "It would be a reproach to New York if it should 
be allowed to leave the city." 



The Citizen. — "There is nothing in the country that will compare 
with it as a general compendium of history relating to the decade from 
i860 to 1870." 



8 The Townsend Library. 

Qen. J. Watts de Peyster. — " A personal examination enables 
me more fully to realize the magnitude and importance of your great 
work, embracing the history of the civil war in all its aspects and vast 
amplitude." 

The Evening Mail. — "It is a collection of historical records such 
as has never been made by the industrj^ of any other man." 



Qen. Fitz John Porter. — "Its unique charactei and the impossi- 
bility of its having a rival in the world of literature, lend to it an histori- 
cal value which the historian and student of history will appreciate. 
Mayor Low is entitled to great credit for his foresight in taking steps to 
secure for Columbia College this vast collection of historical material." 



The Evangelist. — "Certainly there would be general satisfaction 
among educated citizens of New York if the work should remain in 
Columbia College Library." 



Mr. J. C. Warner. — " The work concerns not only the State of 
New York but all the States, supplying a mass of well digested infor- 
mation concerning all sections of the Union that cannot be obtained in 
any other place." 

Geo. M. C. Meigs. — " It will be impossible to duplicate it, and it 
must remain the most complete and accurate journal of the events of 
the great struggle." 

The Home Journal.—" It is a marvel of labor and ingenuity and 
can never be duplicated."' 



Qen. Scofield. — " It maj^ well be considered of national importance." 



Qen. Nelson A. Hiles. — "I congratulate you upon your magnificent 
work which will be of incalculable interest and value." 



Qen. O. O. Howard.—" I thank you heartily for the wonderful 
compendium you have sent me " (a transcript of his record). "It contains 
statements and knowledge which I supposed had passed into oblivion."' 



The Cambridge (Mass.) Tribune. — " The acquisition of this re- 
markably and utterly unique work by the Harvard Library would add 
a treasure to our University that would be priceless in the future." 



Captain Doyle, Author of " Sherman's March to the Sea" — "Your 
work should win for you the thanks and admiration not only of the 



The TovvNSENi) Library. q 

soldiers, but of every patriotic American. It is a stupendous under- 
taking." 



Fernando Wood. — " No one can doubt the utility of your great 
work." 



Qen. Egbert L. Viele. — "I cannot but be struck witti the vast 
amount of information and data that your annals must contain, if my 
comparatively unimportant services are so fully set forth." 



The Christian Advocate. — " It is, of course, in the Department of 

Ecclesiastic Information that clergymen will be most interested, and it 
is precisely here that the Library is particularly rich, enabling the 
reader to trace the relations of the Churches to those engaged on both 
sides in the contest, and the way in which the several denominations af- 
fected and were affected by the great struggle." 

rir. Fisher A. Baker. — " I have received a synopsis of the Eigh- 
teenth Massachusetts Regiment. No one intending to prepare a history 
of any regiment can aiford to neglect the vast body of information you 
have in your possession." 

Gen. N. P. Banks, (1870). — "The outline you send me of the Rich- 
mond letter is sufficient to anwer my purpose. I am glad you have been 
able to find so clear a trace of it, for I began to think, so little was it 
known, that I might have been mistaken myself in regard to its 
contents." 



Senator Flanderson, in the L^nited States Senate. — "A case in 
point, showing the value of this work occurred in this very Session of 
Congress (1S90), where it was deemed important in a matter that was in 
the Committee on Military Affairs to find a certain paper — a letter sup- 
posed to have been written during the years of the war by a prominent 
officer. It was a matter so important that search was made for it every- 
where in public libraries, the Library of Congress, and the libraries of 
the great cities, and nowhere could a copy of the letter be found until 
it was fi.nally furnished from the Townsend Library." 

The New York Herald, April i, 1887— "A retired army officer, of 
high rank, who had just been making some researches through the 
Townsend Library was seen by one of our reporters. He had endeav- 
ored to establish some important point of record which he had been 
unable to verify elsewhere. 'Whv,' said he, 'people have no idea what 
a marvelous fund of information there is in that work. All my interests 
are in the West, and I came East mainly to hunt through that work for 



lo The Townsend Library. 

the fact I needed, and I found it. If I could only get it out West it 
would never come back, I can assure you.' " 



The New York Herald. — " Such a work will lengthen the lives of 
the great men of the future by rendering unnecessary the immense 
waste of time which the want of ready and reliable information has 
hitherto imposed on historical writers." 

"It ought never to be allowed to go out of New York, and yet, 
strange to say, it is a well known and public-spirited citizen of Brooklyn 
(Seth Low) who has been wise, earnest, and energetic in the endeavor 
to keep it here." 

The New York Historical Society. — ''Resolved, That the New 
York Historical Society acknowledge the services rendered to the cause 
of history by Mr. Thomas S. Townsend, in the foresight, skill and per- 
severance displayed by him in the preparation of his work." 



The Long Island Historical Society. — " It is a monument of 
intelligence and patient industry, and its range and extent are won- 
derful." 



The Union League Club. — ''Resolved, That m our judgment it is 
a work of national importance and should be the nation's property." 



General Wade Hampton. — " If your data about most of our public 
men are nearl}^ as full as you have made mine, you have indeed col- 
lected a vast quantity of material." 



General Beauregard. — " I desire to express my high estimation of 
the purpose, industry and perseverance with which, during so many 
years, you have carried on this extensive work." 



Colonel Duncan K. McRae of the Confederate Army. — " Its faii-- 
ness, impartiality and completeness cannot be too highly extolled." 



Mr. Brock, Secretary of the Southern Historical Society. — " Not 
many men would have undertaken a work so provident as yours volun- 
tarily and without stipulation of reward. In all that I have represented 
and by every evidence that I have given of a desire to be useful, would 
I express my commendation of your work." 

C. T. Allen of the 20th Virginia Regiment (Confederate). — In 
answer to a letter from Mr. Allen, published in a Washington paper, 
soliciting information of the whereabouts of a sword— a valuable heir- 
loom — captured at the battle of Rich Mountain, Mr. Townsend gave him 
the information desired, and the name of the soldier who captured it. 



The Townsend Lihkaky. ii 

Mr. Allen says, in his letter of December 17, 1884: " Please accept my 
most grateful acknowledgments for the service you have rendered me." 



Improvement in Recording the Transactions of the City Qov= 
ernment. — Meeting held at the Society Library to consider the pro- 
priety of advocating the adoption of a similar method of preserving and 
concentrating the substance of the City Records so as to promote public 
convenience and aid in preventing abuses, by enabling the citizens at 
any time to learn all essential facts about the operations of public 
officers and the condition of municipal affairs in each branch of the City 
Government. After remarks by General Dix and others, the following 
resolution was unanimously adopted: 

Resolved, " That in connection with the new city charter for the 
City of New York, it be, and is.hereby respectfully submitted for public 
consideration, whether it would not be advisable to provide for the crea- 
tion of a Recording Bureau where any fact connected with the opera- 
tions cf any branch of the City Government could be promptly ascer- 
tained — which Bureau should daily collect and concentrate faithful 
accounts of transactions in the various branches of the corporation 
business, rendering the City Records plain and intelligible as any mer- 
chant's well-kept account books, and thus preventing the possibility of 
such frauds (engendered in secrecy) as have lately disgraced this 
metropolis and plundered its treasury of millions of dollars." 



A HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY. 

BY J. HENRY HAGER. 

An event of national importance occurred in November, i860, 
when Thomas S. Townsend, the son of John R. Townsend, a promin- 
ent member of the New York bar and an honored graduate of Columbia 
College, began the compilation of the work known subsequently as 
" National, State and Individual Records of the Civil War." It was 
nearly six months before the firing on Fort Sumter that was " heard 
round the world ", but Mr. Townsend proved his title to accurate ob- 
servation and his keen insight into current events, by foreseeing the 
national calamity that was about to befall us— the storm soon to burst 
from the clouds already gathering. Thus was born, amid the dis- 
couragement of friends, the thinly-veiled sarcasm of acquaintances 
and the limitations of a very moderate income, what was to grow into 
the monumental historical work of the century. 

Mr. Townsend, through a defect in hearing, was unsuited to face 
the activities of a professional, or commercial career, and thus found in 
his new employment an occupation congenial to him. When, later, he 
became impressed with its magnitude and its absorbing character, he 
accepted a position in the New York Custom House, which he held for 
a number of years, and which enabled him to devote his abundant 
leisure to his " niagiuim opus." Also was he cheered on by the words 
of the heroic Winthrop, who fell at the battle of Big Bethel, and whose 
dying aspiration for his country was that some competent person 
might keep careful record of passing events for the instraction of 
the ages to come. 

Gradually the world became interested in the labors of this quiet 
worker. Such men as the Rev. S. Irenaeus Prime, Rev. Dr. Bellows, 
Gov. John A. Dix, William M. Evarts, and Generals Slocum, Fitz-John 
Porter, and others equally prominent, began to investigate and, as a 
result of their investigation, to wonder and admire. In 1S67 the 
work was taken to Washington where, for a time, the prospect seemed 
bright for its purchase for the Congressional Library. The impeach- 
ment of President Johnson, however, intervened and put a stop to 
negotiations. As a result the then completed volumes were brought 
back to New York, and e.xhibited at the Union League Club and in the 
rooms of the Historical Society, the work, meantime, growing steadily 
in bulk and in value as the result of Mr. Townsend's patient industry 
and intelligent discrimination. 

In i8go another effort was made to secure the purchase of the col- 
lection by the nation, an effort warmly supported not only by Northern 
men of note in military and civil life, but by such e.x-Confederiites 



Thk Townsenu Library. 13 

as Gen. Joseph Wheeler and Gen. Wade Hampton. A bill authoriz- 
ing its purchase was passed by the United States Senate, but was not 
called up in the House, at the last practicable moment, because 
the chairman of the Library Committee was piqued by a refusal 
of the Speaker to recognize him for any other purpose. In 1892 a 
similar bill failed of final passage, though also strongly advocated. Its 
acquirement for the Congressional Library was always strenuously 
urged by the Librarian, Mr. Spofford, but there was a chronic diffi- 
culty in getting certain legislators to understand the true nature and 
value of the work. In 1893 William M. Evarts, Senator Sherman, and 
Gens. Hawley, Slocum, and Fitz-John Porter headed a movement for 
the purchase of the collection by a popular subscription of $50,000, the 
work to go to the American university receiving the largest number 
of votes. This undertaking was also abortive. Finally, the work 
having been placed in the library of Columbia College at the request 
of the trustees, with a view to its ultimate purchase, it was bought 
privately in May, 1896, by F. Augustus Schermerhorn, Esq., one of 
the trustees, and an arrangement made for the completion of the 
concluding volumes, and the preparation of the indexes, four in num- 
ber, with a guide to the same. This work was finished in the Spring of 
189S, and the creator of The Townsend Library had the pleasure of 
presentmg the University with another volume in addition to those pur- 
chased by Mr. Schermerhorn. 

At present the work is comprised in 90 volumes, larger in size than 
the ordinary bank ledger, containing 600 pages each, or 54,000 pages in 
all, which, with four columns of printed matter on a page, gives a 
grand total of 216,000 columns — these columns being as long as, and 
in some cases longer than, those of an ordinar}'- newspaper. But the 
compilation of this immense amount of information regarding our 
Civil war, and other subjects connected with our national history, was 
only the beginning of Mr. Townsend's heroic labors. This crude mass 
of fact had to be carefully collated and epitomized in order to be of 
the slightest value to the historical student, or to the general reader. 
In order to meet this want, Mr. Townsend prepared a second work, 
which he called "The Encyclopedia," comprised of 30 volumes of 
1,300 pages each, or 39,000 pages in all, in which reference is made 
to volume and page where every item mentioned in the main com- 
pilation is to be found. The toil involved in the carrying out of this 
second undertaking, it is difficult for one to realize who has not gone 
through it. In order to facilitate his labors, Mr. Townsend invented 
an original plan, something like the "journalizing" of accounts in 
double-entry bookkeeping. The result has been most satisfactory, 
and, with the aid of the indexes, this great work is as easy of reference 
as a school history. 

At the beginning of the first index are found references to the his- 
tory of this country for a century up to i860, covering Colonial and 



14 The Townsend Library. 

Revolutionary times, the Declaration of Independence, the founders of 
the Union, the Monroe Doctrine, etc. Two pages and a half of refer- 
ences in the Encyclopedia are devoted to James Buchanan as individual 
and as President. Next come five pages and a half of references to the 
individual record of Abraham Lincoln, followed by eleven pages of 
references to him as Chief Magistrate. The latter installment is divided 
under headings as follows : The inauguration ; his address ; the 
inauguration ball ; Vice-President Hannibal Hamlin ; the cabinet ; Mr. 
Lincoln and the executive department of the government ; President 
Lincoln and military affairs ; Gettysburg speech ; the Emancipation 
Proclamation, and Mr. Lincoln's views on slavery ; presidential cam- 
paign of 1864 : peace and reconstruction. Seven pages of references 
follow, concerning the assassination of the President, the records of the 
conspirators, and their trial, making no less than twenty-three pages 
and a half of references to Lincoln alone. Fourteen pages of the index 
are given to Andrew Johnson. There are copious references to the 
departments of the government, including the War Department, its 
Secretaries, and the army from i860 to 1870, and "all attainable in- 
formation up to 1897." By consulting the indexes, and the guide to 
them, one can readily turn to the Encyclopedia and then to the work 
itself for such matters as regimental records, Union or Confederate; 
the various anny corps, general officers, and naval officers on each side 
of the contending forces ; all the States, the regimental and company 
officers, Northern and Southern, under the heading of their regiments, 
and those enrolled in a list of " Our Honored Dead, from military, 
naval, and civil life, April, 1861, to May, 1897." 

In the preparation of this work, Mr. Townsend's aim was to catch the 
very " form and pressure" of the stirring times of which he treated, to 
photograph the wordy strife of the political discussions that preceded 
the war, the din of battle, the cheers of the victorious, the despair of 
the defeated, and amid all, the record of the daily life of the people 
both North and South during the struggle. But how was this done 
will be asked by the reader unacquainted with the method employed? 
There was only one way in which it could be done, and that was by the 
preservation of everything that was printed by the journals and maga- 
zines of the country during these four years. This collection was 
formed from day to day, as the events occurred, and not postponed 
until a subsequent period, when the valuable material might have been 
partially destroyed, or been unwittingly overlooked by the compiler. 
The originator of this novel method of recording history, did not, how- 
ever, cease from his invaluable labors with the surrender of Lee, and 
the military close of the conflict ; he continued his daily routine until 
1870, recording with the same faithful persistence, everything printed on 
all subjects growing out of the war, so that the Library to-day furnishes 
historical students a complete account of the important five years of 
the reconstruction period. But this is not all ;— during the past twenty- 



The Townsend Likrary. 15 

nine years since 1870, a close watch has been kept upon the issues of 
the daily and periodical press, and no item even remotely relating to 
the topics discussed in the main body of the work, has been allowed to 
escape attention. Thus the Library has been growing steadily from 
year to year, and annually becoming more and more a priceless national 
inheritance ! " Fifty years hence," said the late Hon. John A. Dix, 
" the work will have a value which cannot be estimated in money, as 
indeed it has now." 

As to the historical treasures contained in The Townsend Library, 
they cannot, perhaps, be better summarized than in the words of a 
distinguished Senator on the floor of the Senate. He said : " Mr. 
President : This is a collection of all that is most valuable in the 
literature of the war, including every description of composition that 
related to the subject, commencing with the opening of the war and 
the causes which led up to it, all the way through— here is the great 
literary production of the war itself, it is what the American people 
wrote ; It is the battle, the literary battle of the war itself, the great 
controversy embodied in the literature of the period. Now, it seems to 
me that what was produced of a literary nature, historical, novelistic if 
you please, the newspaper comments, the work of statesmen, the work 
of editors, and the entire mental activities of the American people upon 
both sides, as they were exhibited and were personified and crystallized 
in the period of the war itself, must be of exceeding value as long as we 
exist as a people and as long as history is of any consequence in this 
world. Now, here is the battle of Gettysburg, for instance," continued 
the Senator, "upon the exposition of which locality, we have expended 
already hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we are proposing in a 
bill which comes up a little later to make a large appropriation to 
depict upon that historic field the action of the Confederate army, the 
Confederate forces, during the three days of that tremendous and 
decisive conflict ; and yet that was but one battle. Really what, after 
all, is the physical delineation of what can be reproduced of that great 
battle, compared with this picture, this truthful exhibition of all the 
mental collision that occurred during the war, and the literature in 
which it is embalmed, when we consider its real value as compared 
with what I have alluded to as being delineated for years upon the 
battlefield of Gettysburg alone ; when we consider its real value, there 
is no comparison between them." 



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